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CELEBRATION 



OF THE 



NINETIETH ANNIVERSARY 

OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE 



FOR 



PROMOTING THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, 

FOR THE RELIEF OF FREE NEGROES UNLAWFULLY HELD IN 

BONDAGE, AND FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION 

OF THE AFRICAN RACE. 



HELD AT 



Concert Hall, Fourth mo. (April) 14th, 1865. 



INSTITUTED 17-75. 
INCORPORATED 1789. 



"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye ev'in 30 unto them, 
for this is the law and the Prophets. — Matt. vii. 12. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

MERRIHEW & SON, PRINTERS, 

No. 243 Arch Street,' 
186 6. 



OFFICERS FOR 1866. 



PRESIDENT, 

DILLWYN PARRISH. 






VICE PRESIDENTS, 

BENJAMIN COATES. T. ELLWOOD CHAPMAN. 

SECRETARIES, 

JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JR. LUKENS WEBSTER. 

TREASURER, 

CALEB CLOTHIER. 

LIBRARIAN, 

JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JR. 

COUNSELLORS, 

DAVID PAUL BROWN, Phila., H. RYLAND WARRINER, Phila., 

EDWARD HOPPER, " WILLIAM M. LEVICK, 

GEORGE H, EARLE, " JOSEPH R. RHOADS, 

WILLIAM «. PEIRCE, " THADDEUS STEVENS, Lancmier, 

JOSEPH J. LEWIS, Chester. 

ACTING COMMITTEE, 

DILLWYN PARRISH, JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JR., 

PASSMORE WILLIAMSON, H. R. WARRINER, 

CALEB CLOTHIER, ALFRED H. LOVE, 

EDWARD PARRISH. 

BOARD OF EDUCATION, 

BENJAMIN COATES, WILLIAM HEACOCK, 

DILLWYN PARKISH, WILLIAM M. LEVICK, 

T. E. CHAPMAN, MARCELLUS BALDERSTON, 

JOSEPH M. TRUMAN, JR., EDWARD LEWIS. 

LUKEXS WEBSTER, GEORGE TRUMAN, M. D., 

H. R. WARRINER, 0. HOWARD WILSON, 
MORDECAI BUZBY. 

COMMITTEE ON PROPERTY, 

T. E. CHAPMAN, CALEB CLOTHIER, 

H. RYLAND WARRINER. 



c 



V 
^ 



ANNIVERSARY MEETING. 



The President of the Society opened the meeting with the 
following remarks : 

We have assembled this evening to commemorate the 90th an- 
niversary of the " Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Aboli- 
tion of Slavery, and for the relief of free negroes unlawfully 
held in bondage, and for improving the condition of the African 
race." 

On the 14th day of 4th month, 1775, just 90 years ago to-day, 
a few peaceable and philanthropic men met in this city to con- 
sider the great question of American slavery, and to inaugurate 
the Society under whose auspices we are now convened. 

At that time there were 400,000 slaves in the United States. 
The institution soon extended itself into the Territories, and it 
did not require the spirit of prophecy to foresee that unless this 
fearful blight was arrested it would, in time, sap the foundation 
of free Government. 

After the War of the Revolution, a new impetus was given 
to the Society, and there were enrolled among its members many 
eminent men, who felt the obligation to labor for the great prin- 
ciples embodied in the Declaration of Independence. 

They endeavored earnestly to impress upon the public mind 
the iniquity of the system of slavery, and a sense of the danger 
to which the country was exposed by the institution, and, as 
early as 1790, the Society sent a memorial to Congress, signed 
by Benjamin Franklin as President, asking that body to " devise 
means for removing the inconsistency of slavery from the 
American people," and " to step to the very verge of its power 
for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our 
fellow men." 

From that day to the present, these worthy philanthropists, 
and their successors, have labored faithfully in this good cause. 



Notwithstanding their exertions and personal sacrifices, they saw 
the slave power steadily increase, till the North became compli- 
cated with it politically, socially and religiously, and the whole 
Government was brought under its influence. There are many 
around me who can recall some of the scenes in which the active 
members of the Society participated. When the trembling fu- 
gitive escaped from the Southern prison-house, these faithful 
men sheltered him. He was a stranger, they took him in ; naked, 
and they clothed him, and when the ruthless oppressor pursued 
and consigned him to prison, they ministered unto him. Un- 
daunted by threats, and undismayed by popular violence, they 
stood by him before the legal tribunals in the hour of his ex- 
tremity, and if they succeeded in wresting him from the grasp of 
the oppressor, they supplied his wants and sent him on his way 
rejoicing. 

Most of these have gone to their reward. They did not live 
to see the consummation of their hopes, and the fruit of their 
labors. In the ordering of Divine Providence, " liberty has now 
been proclaimed throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants 
thereof. ' ' 

The time has passed when we shall be called upon to promote 
the abolition of slavery, or to relieve free negroes unlawfully 
held in bondage, but a more extended field is now opening 
before us for the improvement of the condition of the Af- 
rican race. A deep rooted prejudice, which a degrading ser- 
vitude and long continued oppression has fostered, still unhappi- 
ly prevails to a large extent, the effect of which is manifested 
in a disregard of the rights and privileges of the African race. 

Now, that the great national sin is being wiped away, and 
American society is about to be remodelled, there is a wide field 
opened in this department. 

If the consistent friends of liberty and equality before the law 
continue to labor with Christian boldness and determined zeal, 
we may hope the time is not far distant when the American 
people will practically recognize the sublime truth that " all men 
are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain in- 
alienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness." 



H. Ryland Warriner, one of the Counsellors of the Society, 
being introduced, said : 

Four years ago this day, the audacious hand of treason suc- 
ceeded in tearing from the ramparts of Sumpter the bright em- 
blem of American sovereignty, power and freedom, and, in bloody 
and boastful defiance, in trampling it with unworthy feet in the 
dust. To-day that bright and beloved flag of the free flashes 
forth again to the Southern sunlight and the Spring breezes, 
waving in triumph and in power over the scarred, and torn, and 
tumbling battlements, where it first felt the rude breath of insult, 
and went down without dishonor before the blast of perjured 
treason ! 

It would certainly be fitting and proper, fellow citizens, that 
we should assemble here to-night, to celebrate with speech, and 
song, and jubilation, this, in the annals of our race, last and no- 
blest restoration. The restoration of democracy in the place of 
deposed despotism and heartless aristocracy, of liberty and law 
over hateful anarchy, of American civilization over medieval 
barbarism, of the school-master and the spelling book over the 
task-master and the whipping-post, of a free press, a free Bible 
and a free ballot over slave codes, branding irons, manacles and 
bullets I In short, of starry heaven-blest freedom over darkling 
heaven-curst slavery ! Nevertheless, fitting and proper as that 
alone might be, it is not for such commemoration that we have 
assembled on this 14th day of April, 1865. Ninety years ago 
this day, our fathers, and the fathers of American liberty and 
independence, formed the nucleus and laid the first foundations 
of a society or organization, which has taken no insignificant 
part in solving the great problem of universal freedom on this 
continent, now apparently approaching its final consummation 
and fruition. That organization is known as " The Pennsylva- 
nia Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the relief of 
free negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and for improving the 
condition of the African race." To commemorate the 90th an- 
niversary of its existence we are now assembled, and it certainly 
is a circumstance that seems to us not unworthy of notice, and 
should seem to the conspirators darkly ominous, that the bold, 



bad men. who plotted a nation's overthroAV that they might de- 
stroy liberty, and deify slavery, should have hit upon this day, in 
the very heart of joyous Spring, to inaugurate their fratricidal 
war. They had forgotten that liberty and Lexington were indis- 
solubly connected with the thought of April in the hearts of their 
countrymen, and that the Pennsylvania Quakers and philanthro- 
pists had chosen this very month and day for the formation of a 
Society, whose efficient labors, unseen and unknown perhaps by 
them, had already jeopardized, or rendered baseless all their 
bright anticipations of liberty-destroying empire, or they would 
not havedared to make the first throw of dice in the terrible stake 
they were about to play, on this day or month of the calendar. 

They knew not of the prayers and tears, and self-sacrificing 
labors of love, that consecrated this day in the calendar, devot- 
ing it to the undying triumphs of freedom, and binding all its 
auspices and harbingers to the utter confusion and dismay of the 
wiliest and wickedest machinations of slavery. And while we 
may well believe that the noble and true men, — the Baldwins, 
Davises, Harrisons, Hoods, the Browns, Zanes, Morgans and 
Prices, — who 90 years ago this day laid the first foundation of 
this Society, huilded better than they knew, we cannot escape the 
conclusion that the liberticides of 1861, the Barnwells, the 
Rhetts, the Yanceys, the Toombses, the Iversons, the Davises, 
the Wigfalls and the Pryors, started upon rottener foundations, 
and daubed with more untempered mortar than even we feared. 

I have been requested by the acting committee of this Society 
to give a brief outline history of its labors and purposes. To do 
this properly would require a larger amount of reading and prepa- 
ration than I have been able to bestow, and its execution a larger 
exercise of patience on your part than would be becoming in me to 
demand. You will not fail to notice that the existence of the 
Society is coeval with that of the nation. It was natural that 
the discussion of principles, and the agitation of the public mind 
which attended the early throes of that great revolution which 
resulted in the independence of the American States, should 
have given rise to the formation of just such societies as this. 
The men of that day accepted in good faith the principles upon 
which alone their own struggle for independence could be justified. 



and were anxious to see extended to others all the rights thoy 
claimed for themselves. No miserable spirit of truckling sub- 
serviency to the dictation of a slavehokling oligarchy had taught 
them the contemptible use of the word white, which has since 
been too prevalent. When they struggled for the rights of man- 
hood, they meant all men, whether the epidermis were stained 
with the pigmentum nigrum, or the pigmentum album. Chief 
Justice Taney had not yet been educated, and the Nation had 
no school for him. 

The merest glance at the names of those belonging to this So- 
ciety in 1789, when it first obtained from the Legislature of this 
State a chartered existence, associated, it will be rjmembere<l, 
for the purposes set forth in the title of this Society, is enough 
to refute the monstrous perversion of history included in the 
opinion of the Supreme Court, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, 
wherein it is asserted, as a matter of law, that the unfortunate 
African race, at the very time of which we are speaking, 
" ivhether emancipated or not, had no rights or privileges hut such 
as those ivho held the power and government might choose to grant 
them,'' antl, as a matter of social and political fact, that '■''they 
had no rights which white men were hound to respect." 

•At the very head of the list stands the venerated name of 
Benjamin Franklin, and out of some hundreds of names men- 
tioned in the act of incorporation, as those constituting the So- 
ciety at that time, citizens of the States of Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virgin- 
ia and Massachusetts, and of the kingdoms of Great Britain 
and France, we find such names as the following : Dr. Benjamin 
Rush, Robert Morris, Isaac Parrish, Tench Coxe, William Lewis, 
James Pemberton, Samuel Coates, William Rawle, John Jay, 
Samuel Hopkins, Noah Webster, Benjamin West, Granville 
Sharp, Dr. Richard Price, Dr. Thomas Clarkson, Right Hon. 
William Pitt, the Abbe Raynal and the Marquis de Lafayette, 
besides many others scarcely less brilliant in history. 

Who can look upon this list of names and see the record which 
these men made for themselves on the subject of the rights of 
Africans by the very act of uniting in the formation of such a 
Society as this, and not see at once the monstrou8 perversion of 



8 

history, as well as of morals, crowded into the sentence, " no 
rights which ivhite men were hound to respect f 

When tills Society w.s formed, Pennsylvania was a slave 
State, or rather a slave colony, the independence of the States 
not yet having been seriously thought of. The first labors, there- 
fore, of its benevolent founders were directed towards some 
practical scheme of emancipation. Unfortunately, owing to the 
disturbed condition of public affairs from 1776 till 1784, no 
records of the proceedings of this Society are preserved. 

But we need not, therefore, infer that the Society itself was 
extinguished, or its beneficent labors suspended. The members 
of this Society, some of them at least, are known to have been 
the chief instigators of those measures which led to the passage 
of that law, of which Pennsylvania may well be proud, the 
Emancipation Act of 1780. For the purpose of showing how 
this Act was thought to affect the condition of colored persons, 
even by the pro-slavery party of that day, — for even in that pri- 
mal golden age of American politics there was a pro-slavery 
party, — let me quote a few lines from the protest which the 
members of the Assembly, opposed to the law, chose to enter 
upon the minutes thereof. Hear it, you who believe in the in- 
fallibility of courts and judges, and then pass your judgment 
upon the historical correctness of the wonderful judicial apothegm, 
" no rights tvhich white men are hound to respect." 

" 3d. Because if the time were come* when slaves might be 
safely emancipated, we could not agree to their being made free 
citizens in so extensive a manner as this law proposes ; we think 
they would have sufficiently answered their humane purposes, had 
these unhappy people been enabled to enjoy the fruits of their 
labor, and have been protected in their lives and property in the 
manner white persons are, without giving them the right of voting 
for, and being voted into office, ^c." 

There was no party then that maintained that the right of 
citizenship depended on race or color. It was solely a question 

*The slaveliolder's time for emancipation never comes; God's time 
Joes ! And when it comes, though it brings a whole nation, with bowed 
hoads and mourning hearts, to the borders of the grave, the chains must 
Huaj), the fettered limbs go free ! 



9 

of condition, bond or free. The moment the shackles, which the 
unjust legislation of man had imposed upon the limbs of the 
slave, were stricken off, that moment he arose to the full dignity 
of manhood. Assuming anl receiving, at the hands of the law- 
makers at least, all the rights granted to white citizens. No 
guard was set at the door ways of public halls and churches, or 
at the entrance of public carriages and vehicles to watch lest the 
appearance of sable features might give offence to aristocratic or 
autocratic democrats ; all this is the fruit of a meaner age of 
American politics ; an age, let us hope and pray, about to pass 
away forever. " As through the shadow of the globe we sweep 
into the younger day," so, through the shadow of the war about 
closing, we sweep upward to the dawn of a better age of Ameri- 
can politics. 

To show you how true are the assertions I am making, and how 
nearly in unison were the feelings of law-makers of that early pe- 
riod in our history, and the founders of this benevolent association, 
let me read you in connection the Preamble to the glorious 
Emancipation Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature of 1780, and 
the Preamble to the Constitution of this Society, both of which 
are so fraught Avith religious trust and fervor, as well as with a 
spirit of human love and charity, expansive as the universe, that 
the reading of them need not be apologized for on this anniver- 
sary day of our Saviour's sufferings. 

First, the enactment passed March 1, 1780, by a vote of 34 
to 21. 

"When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to 
which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to 
reduce us, when we look back upon the variety of dangers to 
which we have been exposed, and how miraculoiisly our wants in 
many instances have been supplied and our deliverance wrought, 
when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to 
the conflict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful 
sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly re- 
ceived from the hand of that Being, from whom every good and 
perfect gift cometh. Imipressed with these ideas, we conceive 
that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power, to ex- 
tend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been ex- 
tended to us, and release from that state of thraldom, to which 
we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we haye 



10 

now every prospect of being deliyered. It is not for us to en- 
quire why, in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the 
several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in 
feature or complexion ; it is sufHcient to know that all are the 
work of an Almighty hand. We find in the distribution of the 
human species, that the most fertile, as well as the most barren, 
parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complexions different 
from ours and from each other ; from whence we may reasonably, 
as well as religiously infer, that He, Avho placed them in their 
various situations, hath extended equally Ilis care and protection 
to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mercies. 
We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that we are en- 
abled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by 
removing as much as possible the sorrows of those who have 
lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed 
authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual, legal relief 
could be obtained. Weaned, by a long course of experience, 
from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, 
we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence to- 
wards men of all conditions and nations, and Ave conceive our- 
selves, at this particular period, extraordinarily called upon by 
the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity 
of our profession, and to give a substantial proof of our grati- 
tude." 

Now hear the Preamble of the Con.stitution of our Society, 
and mark the parallel : 

" It having pleased the Creator of the Avorld to make of one 
flesh all the children of men, it becomes them to consult and pro- 
mote each others happiness, as members of the same family, how- 
■ever diversified they may be, by color, situation, religion, or dif- 
ferent states of society. It is more especially the duty of those 
persons, who profess to maintain for themselves the rights of 
human nature, and who acknowledge the obligations of Christi- 
anity, to use such means as are in their power to extend the 
blessings of freedom to every part of the human race ; and in a 
more particular manner, to such of their fellow creatures as are 
entitled to freedom by the laws and constitutions of any of the 
United States, and who, notwithstanding, are detained in bon- 
dage by fraud or violence. 

From a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these 
principles, — from a desire to diffuse them, wlu'rever the miseries 
and vices of slavery exist, and in humble confidence of the favor 
of and support of the Father of mankind, the subscribers have 
associated themselves under the title of the " Pennsylvania So- 
ciety for promoting," &c. 



11 

One of the first labors to which the Society addressed itself 
in hearty earnest, was to the abolition of the foreign slave trade, 
it being the almost universal opinion at that time, that its de- 
struction would soon lead to the downfall of slavery itself. One 
of its first public documents was a dignified and able letter 
addressed to a committee for abolishing the African Slave Trade, 
instituted in London, in July, 1787. To show you the lofty 
sentiments and high aspirations of the Society at that time, I 
quote a few sentences from that interesting letter. " We look 
forward with pleasure to the time, when the records of modern times 
shall be examined with critical exactness to know whether the 
souls and bodies of men were ever the objects of commerce. 
Whether our laws punished the stealing of a piece of plate or a 
few shillings with death, and at the same time conferred upon 
the receiver of stolen slaves, the honors of a nation. And whether 
it was possible for men to acknowledge the principles of human 
nature and the obligations of Christianity, and yet inflict upon 
their fellow creatures the oppressions and punishments which are 
connected with negro slavery in the West Indies and the South- 
ern States." 

The labors of this Society for the extinction of the detestable 
trafiic in human beings were immense, extending, as its records 
fully show, not only over nearly if not quite all the States in- 
cluded in this Union, but stretching even to the shores of Europe 
and Africa itself. 

In this connection it was that the Society framed that me- 
morial to Congress, on the subject of the condition of African 
Slaves in this country, which met the approval and received the 
signature of the venerable Franklin, the last public act of im- 
portance of that great patriot and philosopher, onesurely that he 
may well be proud of, as crowning a long and useful life. I 
think I may be pardoned, since Congress can no longer be fright- 
ened by the bugbear of such petitions, for quoting a paragraph 
from this memo^al. 

" From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the por- 
tion and is still the birth-right of all men, and inliuenced by the 
strongest ties of humanity, and the principles of their mstitution, 
your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifaabJe 



12 

endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery, and to promote a gen- 
eral enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these im- 
pressions they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the sub- 
ject of slavery, that you would be pleased to countenance the 
restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone in this 
land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who 
amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in 
servile subjection ; that you will devise means for removing this 
inconsistency from the character of the American people ; that 
vou will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race, 
and that you will step to the very verge of the powers vested in you, 
for discouraging every sjyecies of traffic in the persons of our fel- 
low men.'' 

If Congress had given such serious attention to the subject 
matter of this memorial as was thus earnestly entreated, possibly 
our young nation would have been saved the bitter agonies of the 
last four years. But Congress was not indifferent to the me- 
morial, as its journals show. 

In March, 1790, two resolutions were passed by Congress and 
entered upon its journals, which set forth the views then enter- 
tained of its power to control the African Slave Trade, even in 
the ports of those States that admitted the importations of slaves 
by their own citizens. The general idea was that Congress had 
the power to prohibit the prosecution of the trade by foreign 
citizens in any of our ports, as well as to provide proper regula- 
tions for the humane treatment during their passage of such 
slaves as should be imported by the citizens of any State per- 
mitting this to be done. Who shall say what illiads of woe might 
have been spared not only to that unhappy race, but to a proud 
nation of freemen, if Congress had seen fit vigorously to exer- 
cise such limited powers as they conceived themselves to pos- 
sess ? But it was not to be ; Providence in its inscrutable de- 
crees has again led an oppressed people Canaan-ward through a 
Hed iSea ! the foam and spray whereof have verily covered the 
nation of oppressors I .^ 

Under the auspices of this Society a convention was held in this 
city in January, 1794, for promoting the abolition of slavery. 
This was called an American Convention, being an assembly of 
delegates from nearly every part of the country. This Society 
was represented in the Convention by the distinguished Dr. 



13 

Benjamin Rush. He was chairman of the committee appointed 
by this convention to draft an address which was issued by them 
to the people of the United States. This was a document of sucli 
simplicity, perspicuity and vigor, that I cannot forbear reading 
from it. 

"Many reasons concur in persuading us to abolish domestic 
slavery in our country. It is inconsistent with the safety of the 
liberties of the United States. Freedom and slavery cannot long 
exist together. An unlimited power over the time, labor and pos- 
terity of our fellow creatures, necessarily unfit men for discharg- 
ing the public and private duties of citizens of a republic. 

It is inconsistent with sound policy, in exposing the States 
which permit it to all those evils which insurrections and the 
most resentful war has introduced into one of the richest islands 
in the West Indies. 

It is unfriendly to the present exertions of the inhabitants of 
Europe in favor of liberty. What people will advocate freedom 
with a zeal proportioned to its blessings, while they view the 
purest-republic in the world tolerating in its bosom a body of 
slaves ? 

In vain has the tyranny of kings been rejected, while we per- 
mit in our country a domestic despotism, which involves in its 
nature most of the vices and miseries that we have endeavored 
to avoid. 

It is degrading to our rank as men in the scale of being. Let 
us use our reason and social affections for the purposes for which 
they were given, or cease to boast a pre-eminence over animals 
that are unpolluted with our crimes. 

But higher motives to justice and humanity towards our fel- 
low creatures remain yet to be mentioned. 

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. 
It prostrates every benevolent and just principle of action in the 
human heart. It is rebellion against the authority of a common 
Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the 
death of a common Saviour. It is an usurpation of the preroga- 
tive of the G-reat Sovereign of the Universe, who has solemnly 
claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men. 

But if this view of the enormity of the evil of domestic slavery 
should not affect us, there is one consideration more which ought 
to alarm and impress us, especially at the present juncture. It 
is a violation of a divine precept of universal justice, which has 
in no instance escaped with impunity. 

The crimes of nations as well as of individuals are often desig- 
nated in their punishments ; and we conceive it to be no forced 



14 

construction of some of the calamities •which now distress or im 
pend over our country, to believe that they are in the measure 
evils which we have meted to others." 

All three of the objects of this Society, as set forth in its title, 
seem to have engaged its attention and exertion from the outset. 
But in 1805, twenty five years after the passage of the gradual 
Emancipation Act of our Legislature, the Society itself uses this 
language: "much of the exertions of our Society, will, in con- 
sequence of the rapid decline of slavery amongst us, be employed 
in future, less in obtaining the liberation of the blacks, than in. 
the improvement of their morals, and the promotion of the educa- 
tion of their offspring." 

But time would fail me, should I undertake even to go over 
the heads of the important measures adopted by this Society, 
and the vigorous action taken by it in every important juncture 
affecting the rights of manhood, or the interests of the African 
race, during the long and trying years of its labors. In 1820, 
when the slave power won its first great triumph, after the 
adoption of the Constitution, over the enlightened moral sense 
of the nation, by the admission to the Union of Missouri as a 
Slave State, this Society was thoroughly aroused and did what 
it could to deepen and extend the sentiment of hostility to 
slavery. 

It is at a public meeting held in December of this year that 
the records of this Society first make honorable mention of the 
name of our distinguished fellow-citizen, David Paul Brown, 
who afterwards, for thirty years and more, as counsellor of the 
Society, devoted his legal abilities and forensic powers to the 
aid of this Society, and of the hated, oppressed, but struggling 
cause of human freedom. Honor to whom honor is due ! 
Pardon me, if, in this connection, I illustrate the tiresome and 
self-sacrificing manner in which these labors had sometimes to 
be bestowed, by an anecdote as it has been told to me. In 
December, 1830, or therenbout, he was called upon by the 
venerable Thomas Shipley — for a brief period President of the 
Society, and whose labors of love for the black man, almost 
incredible in amount, persistence and devotion, are worthy of 
the whitest marble — to go to Trenton to defend the claim to 



15 

freedom of an alleged fugitive slave. Upon their arrival, it was 
found necessary to despatch a messenger in great haste to Newark. 
This was before the day of railroads, anterior even to the existence 
of the ubiquitous Camden and Amboy. Thomas Shipley, whose 
zeal would not permit him to rest night or day, while the liberty 
of a human being was at stake, was that messenger, and he 
travelled night and day, at this inclement season, to accomplish 
that journey. Upon his return, the exigencies of the case 
required the authentication of certain documents which could be 
made only by sending a messenger to Delaware or Maryland. 
This young counsellor despatched the gray-headed but devoted 
messenger on the long journey, whilst he undertook, with those 
bellows which nature provided him for lungs, and that tough 
persistency of brain which characterizes the hero, to hold the 
court and the cause subservient to a lawyer's tongue, till he 
should return ! and he succeeded. The trial occupied eighteen 
days, but the return of these documents clinched the cause in 
favor of freedom; which not only sustained a worthy and 
reputable man in his claim to liberty, but had the eflect of 
arousing public indignation against a system of kidnapping to 
which the free blacks of that State and of this were at that 
time, and for years afterwards more or less exposed, and led to 
the passage of a law in that State, soon after, giving a trial by 
jury to all persons claimed as slaves. 

The special object of the meeting of 1820 was to arouse pub- 
lic attention to the aggressions of the slave power : and, as a 
means to that end, to memorialize the Legislature. The memo- 
rial that was then prepared uses the following language : — 

"On the general subject of slavery, it is needless to enlarge. 
We will remind your honorable body that slavery, in any and 
every form, is inconsistent with the principles of our free and 
excellent Constitution. The Act of 1780 probably was carried 
as far as the danger of the country at the time would admit. 
If, however, a sense of danger then restrained the States from 
going further, a sense of danger, which, though different in 
form, is not less serious in aspect, should now impel it to proceed 
to the full length of the sound and noble doctrine laid down in 
the preamble to that law. 

" The present juncture presents an alarming avowal of prin- 
ciples vitally affecting the nature of our republican Government. 



16 

Slavery is not merely tolerated, but stamped and impressed on 
the body of the Constitution of a new State, accompanied by an 
oppressive, wanton and unnecessary discrimination of the rights 
of citizens, depending merely on the color of their persons. 
Against an innovation so alarming, and a precedent so dangerous 
and injurious, we seemed called upon to raise our voice and to 
regulate our conduct. The admission of Missouri with such a 
constitution, no State can singly prevent ; but every State that 
abhors principles so obnoxious seems bound to remove whatever 
may be quoted as an example in favor of them, furnished by 
itself. Thus, the immediate and total abolition of slavery 
within the limits of our own State becomes a reason of consist- 
ency and justice." 

From this time till the commencement of the great civil Avar 
about closing, the labors of this Society in behalf of those poor 
unfortunate Africans who were either claimed as fugitives from 
labor, or made the victims of the wily and inhuman kidnapper, 
were constant and unremitting. 

Keeping themselves and their labors always strictly within 
the limit of the law, they were yet able to do much to hedge 
with difficulties the way of the haughty men who made a hunt- 
ing ground for fugitive chattels of the soil of Pennsylvania ; 
and it seems as though every triumph which the kidnappers and 
slave-mongers obtained, when this Society threw itself in their 
way — which were not many nor great — only paved the way for a 
coming defeat, since it taught new duties to the Society, and 
gave its members new caution and wariness. 

The triumph of the slave poAver in 1850, in the passage of the 
celebrated Fugitive Slave LaAv, and the hampered, irritating 
success it had in reclaiming fugitives in this State under it — 
which must be remembered by nearly all present — are an illus- 
tration of this. I had intended briefly to recount the incidents 
of some of the more interesting of these cases, but they are 
familiar to the most of you — more so even than to me — my ser- 
vices as counsellor of the Society having been enlisted too late 
in its history to render any assistance in a fugitive slave case, 
except the last — the last that has transpired in this free city, 
before a Philadelphia Judge or Commissioner, and, thank God, 
the last that ever can ! 

The monstrous attempt of the slave power to establish itself 



17 

virtually in all the States, free as well as slave, by aid of the 
Judiciary was resisted by this Society, with all its characteristic 
stubborness and pertinacity, in the person of Passmore Wil- 
liamson, in 1855. I shall not, for the want of time, recount 
the incidents of that struggle, full of meaning and instruction 
as they were; nor tell how, with smiling complacency, that 
placid member of the Acting Committee saw the closing upon 
himself of dungeon grates and doors and prison bars, while his 
beatified and compensated vision caught glimpses of the burst- 
ing of fetters, and the flinging wide open of the dungeon doors 
of the great prison-house of slavery ! 

Fellow-citizens, this Society, always active, unostentatious 
and beneficent in its labors, has had enrolled among its members 
some of the best and brightest names in history. Look at its 
departed Presidents — Benjamin Franklin, James Pemberton, 
Dr. Benjamin Rush, Dr. Caspar Wistar, Thomas Shipley, Dr. 
Joseph Parrish, and Edward Needles, whose names will long 
be remembered. Surely, from such as these, there could flow 
none but the most unpretending labors of beneficence. But, 
well or ill as it may have been, the labor of its two primal 
objects are nearly, if not quite, completed — the abolition of 
slavery, and the relief of free negroes unlaAvfuUy held in bondage. 
Fetters and manacles that seemed harder than adamant and 
heavier than mountains have melted like wax in the red blaze of 
war ; and soon the jubilee shout of freedom will burst from shore 
to shore of the American continent. 

There remains only the last grand object — improving the con- 
dition of the African race. You can see what there is yet to do 
for this object. In a great city like this, which takes special pride 
in its claims to the exercise of brotherly love, where complexion 
alone can exclude respectable men and women from taking seats 
in the public vehicles that traverse — and I had almost said 
monopolize — nearly all our public streets, we need to be 
reminded, as we are by the jubilations of this day, that now, for 
more than five years, on earth and in heaven, John Brown's soul 
has been marching on ! Our simple duty, the duty of the 
American people, to-day, is to clear our minds of all prejudice, 
cant and aversion, and, accepting the facts of Divine Provi- 



18 

dence by which this hated and despised people have been led 
through a Red Sea of blood to the Canaan of freedom, extend to 
them, as to all men, Justice — in perfect sincerity and good 
fiiith, simple, pure, unalloyed Justice ! 

The principles of our National Constitution require this — 
the pledge of our loyal people, given in the darkest hour of the 
fearful struggle from which we are just emerging, demands it — 
and most reverently would I say it, the just God who reigns 
above, and who guides the destinies of nations, will be satisfied 
with nothing less ! 

As this nation, now in the hour of its great triumph and the 
crisis of its fate, shall deal with the heretofore broken and 
despised African, so shall it solve the problem of its future des- 
tinies ! So shall it march on, serenely and securely, to grander 
heights than any nation ever yet aspired to ; or, forgetting the 
charter of its liberties, and the sacrificial blood of its heroes and 
patriots, stumble blindly into darker gulfs of infamy and shame 
than ever yet overwhelmed a people ! Heaven open all eyes to 
see and all hearts to feel, till, as a nation without pretence and 
without hypocrisy, we shall 

'^ Be just, and fear not.'' 

The next speaker was the Rev. Alfred N. Gilbert, of New 
York, formerly of Kentucky, who spoke as follows : — 

Ninety years in the life of an individual, an organization or a 
nation, comprehend many vicissitudes. Forms of civilization or 
uncivilization may develop or expire within that period. Very 
few societies preserve their existence so long. The very causes 
that made their existence necessary may vanish, and frequently 
do, within that length of time. It is, therefore, an occasion of 
no little interest that arises from the ninetieth anniversary of a 
society. It bespeaks attention, it indicates vitality of principle, 
it shows stamina and persistence in its membership, and formid- 
able strength in its obstacles when its character is reformatory. 

The anniversary in which we participate exemplifies all these 
points. Coeval with the nation, a little the elder of the two, this 
Society has had steadfastly before it one central object, an object 
humane and Christian. Its founders slumber in the grave, and 



19 

most of their successors of two generations have followed them 
to their quiet resting place : yet the Society still endures. New 
blood has been infused into its veins as the old has passed away, 
ever retaining the identity of principle and purpose until, in the 
eighty-ninth of independence, it celebrates the completion of the 
ninetieth year of its existence. 

Its vicissitudes have been wonderful. Organized at a time 
when the sentiment of the best and strongest of the country was 
with it in its object ; existing for years side by side with Wash- 
ington and Jefferson, and other patriots, with whom there was no 
question of the wrong of slavery, but only of the best mode of 
disposing of it, this Society lived to see the teachings of sages 
and patriots alike forgotten or disregarded. It lived to see the 
invention of the cotton-gin revolutionize the moral sense of a 
nation. It lived to see a free country bow in abject submission 
to the most remorseless tyranny that the world has ever seen : 
a tyranny having its origin in lust of wealth, and its increase in 
lust of power. It lived to see the system of slavery not only 
extending its territory, not only widening its influence, but at the 
same time growing yearly more oppressive, more wicked, more 
defiant of God and oblivious of Christ, till it seemed as if the 
nation loved it for its crimes. It lived to see the nation, the 
proud nation which had inscribed freedom on its banner, which 
had declared all men equal, stand as the last grand bulwark of 
slavery, and constitute itself, in 1850, into a vast body of slave- 
catchers. 

And then began the recoil. The finger of God came out on 
the great wall of the future, gleaming in the flash of His fierce 
anger, and began to write Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin ; and the 
slaveocrat saw it and trembled — not with fear, but rage, and 
filled with the impious purpose to seize the reins from the hands 
of God. But the letters gleamed still. 

This Society lived to see Satanic cunning and fraud culminate 
in the record of Buchanan's Cabinet— lived to see the Government 
ground in the dust at the feet of the slave fiend, and, finally, to 
see the weapons of fraud thrown down and those of brute force 
taken up, and has lived to see those weapons drop from the nerve- 
less grasp of the slave power. 



20 

After years of weary waiting and labor and watching, under 
the burden of national hatred and scorn, it now sees its grand 
principles inscribed on the banners of the mature nation as it 
was written on the foundation stone of the Republic, and the 
motto on the dear old bell whose brazen peal told of the signing 
of the Declaration, practically realized throughout the land : 
" Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants 
thereof." 

Brethren, your mission is almost accomplished. The long, 
long weary day is almost passed away. When your centennial 
shall arrive, not a shackled slave will stand on the soil of the 
United States of America, and, if I do riot much mistake, the 
entire civilized world will have cleansed itself of the foul blot 
that has stained the century, otherAvise so significant of pro- 
gress. 

And to-night the nation rejoices with you — rejoices over that 
which is as significant of the future as your experience is of the 
past. To-day, at twelve o'clock, in the harbor of Charleston, 
the stately forts, the formidable earthworks, the great circles of 
cannons which announced to the world that the slaveholders' 
Rebellion was inaugurated, have pealed in a thundering burial 
salute over its grave. To-day, the precious symbolic flag, whose 
downward fluttering told of national shame and humiliation more 
bitter than death, winged its glittering way to the summit of a 
flag-staff", from which its flaunting folds proclaim that Union and 
Liberty are one and indivisible, now and forever. To-day, the 
man whom slavery hated and feared as much as any other, Henry 
Ward Beecher, is the chosen messenger to tell the friends of 
slavery, on the classic ground of its intellectual Capital, in the 
State of its most honorable exponent, that it is dead, dead, 
DEAD, for the rains of heaven to fall upon and the fowls to de- 
vour. 

Four years of the commercial life of the highly successful firm 
of Uncle Sam, Abraham Lincoln and the loyal people of the 
United States have just expired ; and as they are about to change 
their business entirely, it is highly necessary that the books 
should be examined and closed, a balance sheet struck, and our 
stock account opened anew. And as it is usual to close the 



21 

various accounts into profit and loss, no better time than this can 
be selected to see where we stand, what we have gained and what 
lost, what we owe and what is owing to us. 

The speaker then went into an examiiuition of the losses and 
gains which have grown out of this terrible conflict. 

We have lost slavery, he said, and there are few to weep. Some 
boasting, storming, cursing, chewing, spitting Legree may squeeze 
a tear to its memory out of the corners of his red eyes ; some of 
those antiquated fossils who believe in conservatism, even though 
it be unto death, may pucker their eyebrows and sigh at the in- 
novations and radicalisms of the age ; some languid beauties, 
poisoned into inanity and uselessness by the blandishments of 
the system, may mourn for the departed Phillis or Chloe, who 
will not return, or insist on wages ; but the good and the holy, 
the just and true, the brave and magnanimous, will rejoice to be 
chief pall-bearers at the glad funeral of our departed shadow. 
We have lost slavery, but such losses enrich a nation. 

Among the losses he enumerated the loss of property, the de- 
struction of cities and towns, and lastly and saddest of all, the loss of 
men — brave men, true men, such men as are a crown of glory to 
any nation to which they belong. Men from the mansions of the 
wealthy and the hut of the laborer ; from the store, the office, 
the counting-room, the farm, the workshop. Men with the white 
frost of many winters upon their scant locks, and others with 
the clustering curls of scarcely developed manhood. Men among 
whom a distinction in color has never constituted a distinction 
in bravery or self-sacrifice. Amid the whirr of the bullets and 
the clash of arms, they have fallen in instant and glorious death ; 
overlooked by the legions who swept onward or backward, they 
have dragged themselves to lonely nooks, and poured out their 
hearts' noble blood, or, after weeks and months of patient, weary 
suffering, have given up their lives for their country. They are 
lost to us, but not their memory or their influence. The land of 
the nation has been made holy by the blood of voluntary sacri- 
fice, and assured to freedom and to God for all the years of the 
future. The flagstaff of the oppressor cannot and shall not be 
planted in the soil made crimson by their wounds, and their 



22 

memory shall be to us a mine of precious strength for the con- 
flicts of the future. 

Among the gains of the country, he enumerated the develop- 
ment of patriotism, resources and strength ; and, growing out of 
thest', we have gained permanent peace abroad. 

The speaker next alluded to the debts of the nation. First, 
said he, we owe gratitude to our God. Never was nation so truly 
bFessed. Never were His finger prints more plainly discernible 
in national life. With the mind of infinite wisdom, the heart of 
infinite love and the hand of infinite power, He has led us, under 
crosses and through trials, upward to an elevation, a fulness of 
joy, a development of life far beyond what we would or could 
have carved out for ourselves. 

We also owe a debt to those who have perilled their lives in 
the cause of freedom ; and, while the speaker believed that we 
should extend to the masses engaged in the rebellion, mercy, 
pity, and sympathy, he demanded not that vengeance should be 
meted out to the leaders, but inflexible justice, so that a premium 
shall not be put upon treason for all time to come. 

Another debt we owe (said the speaker,) — to the colored race, 
the loyalists of the South. This war has been full of records of 
negro agency in our behalf. Negro guides have piloted our forces ; 
negro sympathy cared for our prisoners escaping from the enemy; 
negro hands have made for us naval captures ; negro spies brought 
to us most valuable information. The negroes of the South have 
been in sympathy with us from the beginning, and have always 
hailed the approach of our flag with the wildest demonstrations of 
joy. To abandon them now to the tender mercy of their former 
masters would be to overwhelm ourselves with disgrace and them 
with misery. 

For suppose the Constitutional Amendment to have been rati- 
fied, and slavery therefore abolished, there are a thousand ways 
in which the freed negroes mio-ht be forced to a condition little 
better than slavery. The tendency of capital is, directly or in- 
directly, to own labor, and never were there better opportunities 
for the t^uccess of this tendency than will be presented in the 
South. All the tratlitions and instincts of the Southern people 
would conduce to this result. Nor would I trust to Northern 

/ 



23 

emigration to prevent it. In the North itself, a pride of race, an 
instinct of dislike or contempt for the negro is so common, that 
a large number of the immigrants would be predisposed to fall in 
with the views of the original inhabitants. 

It is obligatory upon the Government to see that the negro is 
not placed at the mercy of his former owners. The only way in 
which this can be eifectually provided for is to give to him the 
right of suffrage. With the ballot in his hands he can protect 
himself, and the race would hold a balance of power between any 
two parties that would effectually prevent any attempt to oppress 
them. 

Some may think universal negro suffrage dangerous. Is it any 
more so than universal white suff'rage as it now exists in the North ? 
Would negroes more unblushingly vote for leaders or money than 
many whites now do ? Moreover, this measure would benefit the 
whole Southern population. It would be an effectual guarantee 
to those white loyalists who might otherwise suffer. 

One thing is certain. It is our duty either to secure to the 
negro, in fact as well as name, the freedom w^hich we have given 
to him, or to place him in a position where he may secure it to 
himself. In no way can you more certainly excite the self-re- 
spect of the freedmen, and thus start the train of agencies that 
shall make them useful and desirable members of the community, 
than by giving them to realize their full manhood. Suffrage will 
at least conduce to this end. I do not wish the colored race to 
continue the creditors of the nation. 

Another debt we owe — to England ! Not war I think, how- 
ever. What should we gain by going to war ? There is no great 
principle to be established, no great concession to be obtained. 
It would be hardly worth while, for the sake of making England 
pay the few millions destroyed by her corsairs, to spend ten times 
.is much, and cause our merchants to lose ten times as much, as 
they inevitably would in case of war. 

I do not see how we can afford to let England pay these 
damages. The precedent is too precious. We should retain 
them as a rod to hold in terrorem over British heads for all times 
to come. Demand a settlement ? Never ! Compound a felony ': 
Never ! All is summed up in the monosyllable, Wait. 



24 

To the widows and orphans of our dead soldiers we owe pro- 
tection and support. 

To ourselves we owe perseverance in the right course upon 
which we have entered. After the Rebellion we enter upon the 
fourth period of our existence as a people. We have had our 
twilight, our starlight, our moonlight ; already we see gilding the 
mountain tops of promise our glorious sunlight. 

Our twilight was the revolution. Great forms were seen dim- 
ly. Luminous patches revealed themselves through the haze, 
telling of unrevealed beauty. Soon, as battle-smoke and murky 
cloud- wreath rolled away, the gleaming starlight shone forth, the 
starlight of the Confederation. 

But the yearning cry of humanity and progress was for more 
light, and the dissevered stars commingled to a single silver orb, 
and in the closer bond and consolidated strength of the Constitu- 
tion of '87, the moonlight spread its beauteous rays. Men gazed 
and admired, and our country prospered ; but after all it was only 
moonlight, — a borrowed radiance; only liberty's glorious rays re- 
flected from a background of bondage. 

Twilight, starlight, moonlight, all are gone. Each successive 
emergence of light was from a crisis of blood or gloom ; the twi- 
light from British oppression ; starlight from the sorrows of the 
first war ; moonlight from the failure and threatened destruction 
of the Confederation ; and now, from the storm and darkness in 
which the moonlight has been lost, cometh forth the sunlight, 
never to grow dim till time shall be no more. 

Shine, oh. Sun ! gleam, oh, golden-tinted mountain tops ! 
Reflect back the fiery rays, oh, rolling billows of humanity's 
great ocean ! Sing, oh mountains, and let the little hills clap 
their hands together for joy ! Upward it climbs, the sun of 
universal liberty, and the earth grows green with the spring-time 
of the Millenium ! It touches the bowed slave of the cotton field, 
and he stands erect in conscious manhood. T\\q fimgi that have 
accumulated wither beneath its burning rays, and the world is 
beautiful. 

Henceforth, the toiling patriot, waiting and watching, shall 
place in his book of synonyms, Liberty, Columbia, Hope, Amer- 
ica; and when the fulness of time shall have come, the clarion 



25 

voice of our country sliall peal tliiou<^-ii tlir OM World as the 
trumpet of the archangel, summoning the victims of tyranny from 
the grave of oj^pression, tearing from humanity the soiled work- 
day garments of the past, and clothing her in costly robes from 
the treasure-house of freedom. 

Wm. S. Pierce, Esq., for many years one of the Society's 
counsellors, was introduced, and next reviewed some of the fugi- 
tive slave cases which he had aided in defending; but as this and 
the succeeding remarks were extempore, we are prevented from 
publishing them. 

Rev. Henry Highlasid Garnett, of Washington, made a few re- 
marks, but owing to indisposition, could not speak at much 
length. 

Joseph R. Rhoads, Esq., then read a- letter from David Paul 
Brown, Esq., who has, for nearly 50 years, been one of the coun- 
sellors of the Society. 

Rev. John Walker Jackson, of Harrisburg, next spoke, and 
claimed that the first blood shed in the defence of our Govern- 
ment in the great war now happily drawing to :i close, was that 
of a colored man from Pennsylvania, killed in Baltimore by the 
secession mob, he being with the soldiers that rushed to the de- 
fence of the Capitol. 

Benj. H. Brew^ster, Esq., being loudly called for, came forward 
a,nd addressed the meeting, and avowed himself " now, hencefor- 
ward and forever, an unconditional radical abolitionist." In 
repW to one of the audience in regard to colored people riding 
in the cars, he exclaimed, " Have I not already given my 
opinion ? But wdiy talk of cars? That is a small local question; 
give the negro the ballot, and he will legislate himself not only 
into the cars, but gain all his rights." Subsequently he remarked, 
extending his hand to II. H. Garnett, wdio rose and clasped it, 
"I was reared a gentleman, I practice the profession of a gentle- 
man, and I claim to be a gentleman, and I can take this colored 
man, who is black enough to be a fair representative of the negro, 
by the hand, and call him my brother." 

At a late hour the meeting closed, but the pleasure awakened 
by the occasion was marred by learning next morning that, at 
about the same hour, our estimable President had fallen by the 
hands of an assassin. 



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